For better or worse, there is an interesting discussion happening on a few China-related blogs these days. A discussion turned into an argument turned into something else altogether. I really enjoy the sites of all parties involved, and I hope everybody manages to keep a level head and not get too carried away.
In a nutshell, the debate is over SEO. Should we adjust our writing, our keywords, our urls — should we make our content more “googlable” so that we might draw in more traffic?
Mark of Toshuo thinks no. While I’ve only just recenty started reading his blog, I guarantee you that Mark will get traffic even if he pays no attention to SEO. He does some really cool work, such as the pinyin tone tool which I use quite often, which would draw traffic even if there was no other content onsite.
Putting the SEO Cart before the Horse
Though I have tried my best to optimize my site for SEO, I do think that putting disproportionate focus on SEO instead of content will most certainly get you in trouble. Your content is everything. What is the point of marketing something that essentially isn’t even worth marketing? Write first. Great content will market itself.
Does your Voice have Value?
If your blog is an online journal, than obviously you don’t care about marketing because these are just your personal writings. In that case, SEO is likely something you don’t need. However, if you are trying to get a message across to readers - if you have a message of some value, which you hope to give to others - then yes, you might want to pay some attention to SEO.
I use only one tool for SEO
That tool is the Wordpress Ultimate Tag Warrior Plugin. There. Go get it, and use it. However, I think there are many things far more valuable than SEO, most notably (as I’ve said) good content. But once you have that covered, then focus on the marketing aspect, if your goal is indeed reaching a wider audience.
Build a readership base
You can get as many google hits as you want, but if a reader doesn’t like what he sees, he’s not coming back to your page. But assuming he does like what you’ve written, you should provide a path for him to return. Using a Feedburner RSS feed you can set up a email subcription box as I have in the top right of my site. I have a modest readership, but it has been steadily climbing since I re-launched back in February. I don’t credit that to any SEO miracles. It’s simply because of more frequent, and more deliberate, thought-out posting.
At least, I like to think so.
Oh yeah, and for those of you who came for the headline, here is that AMAZING YOUNG ASIAN KITTY, as promised.
UPDATE: Typo Report
Uh oh. Looks like I made a typo in the headline, and actually typed “Amazing Young Asian Titty” instead of “Amazing Young Asian Kitty”.
Sorry about that. How embarrassing…
Please accept my most sincere apology:
China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Leon / The Professional
And continuing the now two-month old tradition of posting pirated media at the end of every post, here’s Leon / The Professional.
Luc Besson and Jean Reno are always a good combination. Courtesy of tudou.
14 Responses
Mark
April 9th, 2007 at 4:58 am
1I had no idea the Ultimate Tag Warrior was an SEO tool. I thought it was just for the pretty tag cloud. What does it do SEO-wise？
Lonnie
April 9th, 2007 at 9:59 am
2Great stuff…But, you just stole half of my pervert traffic….
You are right: content is, and always will be, King….
I agree with building a good site early on: Matt Cutts and others think you should have 100 pages written before you even submit to the search engines…He may be right….
But, I think you need to put your most sellable stuff out there where people can see it…Ignoring SEO is a sure way to obscurity. I have helped a bunch of folks finally get visible on the net…Their only crime was a poorly optimized site….their writing or misison was superb….
I am glad everyone is enjoying the cat fight….I suspect the Laowai from the island province was just trying to generate a little traffic and a few more backlinks…You should charge him for the front page mention…
Great Video…I am teaching my kitty to answer the phone…..Might need Bluetooth…
admin
April 9th, 2007 at 10:52 am
3Hey Mark,
Ultimate Tag Warrior allows the tags that you choose for each post to function as meta keywords for that post. Meta tags are becoming less and less impt, but I still throw them in there.
It also gives the options of putting the tags in the url structure. But of course that can be done using the permalinks option in wordpress.
You can also put display the tags at the end of each post, but I choose not to do
that. I choose instead to display them in my feed, so that the feed has a “related posts” option.
There are a ton of other options as well. But those are the main ones related to SEO. Really, I only use a small percentage of the tool’s functions, but I think it’s still worth using.
There’s a lot that can be said about SEO. But I think if you follow the basics, it’s really not necessary to pain yourself obsessing about it. Pagerank and all those metrics are all well and good, but in the end it comes down to the end product.
Don’t waste time try to market a site, if you haven’t first invested the time to make sure it’s a good site. As I said in my post, I think your pinyin tool is awesome. And even though I didn’t bookmark your site in the past, google could always direct me back. That’s a quality tool that markets itself, and your google rankings reflect that.
Keep up the good work!
admin
April 9th, 2007 at 11:02 am
4Lonnie,
Re: “But, I think you need to put your most sellable stuff out there where people can see it.”
I couldn’t agree more. I think you are also using Alex King’s Popularity Contest Plugin. on your page. Incidentally, I think this is a kick-ass tool for showing your most popular posts on your main page (ideally above the fold). You should consider turning on that feature, in order to accentuate your “Best-of” posts.
Give your readers your best stuff up front. That’s not really SEO related, but it does make for a better overall site layout, in my mind.
Mark
April 9th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
5Sadly, Lonnie, this isn’t really the way I want to get traffic. I should be out there making stuff. Something more useful than just a few javascript tools. If only I had a bit more time to spend on the computer…
range
April 9th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
6Creating good content is key.
That is how I started blogging.
A lot of bloggers would like to do nothing but blogging.
Using SEO and the tools for monetizing a blog is necessary.
Some bloggers do very well, others try to find their niche market.
There was a point where I was really trying hard to monetize my blog. But since I moved to Taiwan, I am taking another approach.
Part of it is moving my blog to a hosted service, which I did in February.
Seriously, everybody should take a step back and relax a bit.
There is no need for getting all upset about the matter.
We all have our own opinions, and most of the time they are different.
admin
April 10th, 2007 at 7:16 am
7Thanks for stopping by Mr. Range.
You’re definitely right, there’s no need to get worked over something like this.
Different opinions lead to different ideas, which might lead to different neato ways of doing things.
range
April 11th, 2007 at 3:13 am
8Totally right.
Brainstorming is always great, and wouldn’t we all want to quit our day jobs and blog/write full time?
Currently, I am no longer sure of this, since my day job has gotten a lot more interesting since I moved to Taiwan, but still, back when I was a financial adviser in Montreal, Canada, it was a dream.
admin
April 11th, 2007 at 4:15 am
9For sure. Full-time blogging sounds like a neat idea, but in reality it seems like only a select few can make an actual living from blogging.
I enjoy writing stuff here, and I learn a lot in the process - and that’s enough for me.
Get to meet lots of cool people too.
Mark
April 12th, 2007 at 1:49 am
10I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but I think that if you want to make enough money to live off of from full-time blogging, you have to provide enough value to be worth a full-time salary. It could be something people will pay for, such as Chinese Pod’s lessons, or it could be something that will enrich people’s lives enough that they’ll flock to your site by the millions. Steve Pavlina’s site would be a good example of the latter type.
Either way, you have to provide something. The only ways of getting wealth are to take it from others, or to create it.
admin
April 12th, 2007 at 8:40 am
11Yeah Mark, we can resussitate that horse and give him one last good flogging.
What you said just now was exactly what I was hinting at when I asked the question “Does your voice have value?” Is it something that someone would actually pay for?
In 99% of the cases, I’d say the answer is no. But yeah, Steve Pavlina is definitely one of the exceptions.
Chinesepod is creating amazing value for their users. And I hope they get every bit as rich off it as they deserve.
lonnie
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
12My last note on this whole fiasco:
No one has commented on the abusive and inaccurate Enquirer style headline he used to begin this debate that has brought him several back-links and unique visitors…
Range,
I am not sure a Rodney King type answer is called for here….The guy doesn’t add much to the blogsphere…
His asinine and TRULY superficial behavior probably doesn’t deserve a retort, but…
Mark
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 am
13Lonnie, I notice that you’ve gone back and edited multiple comments on your post!
Take it easy man! I’m not the one who was making personal attacks, and I really don’t have interest in SEO or other “asinine or superficial behavior”… like cursing people out or editing comments in an attempt to cover it up. I already told you I didn’t mean anything personal by what I wrote, I already said “no worries” on HHR, and I’d forgotten about the whole thing until I learned you’d gone back and altered the comments on your blog. I had thought everything was cool, and hadn’t realized you’d gone ape-sh#t on my dislike of anti-Japanese prejudice, either. Just chill out! In my mind that whole SEO thing was ages ago. If you’re ever in town, I’ll buy you a beer of your choice as a peace offering.
As for my headline, I agree with you completely, Lonnie. I specifically chose that headline to illustrate what I don’t like about self-promotion. I said so in the original post, too:
It was intended as a self-referential jab. Peace.
admin
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:29 am
14I missed that post about Japan.
Interesting, but I’m not of the same mind on that one.
I may be biased, but I’m sure my bias is well founded in facts.
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